Coffee Shop Culture Amsterdam Style

Wed, May 13th 2009, 12:04

The Netherlands has a long association with coffee; in the 1600s they had established the first coffee plantations in Java. These days, however, Dutch coffee shop culture has come to mean something else entirely.

It was the Dutch who first managed to smuggle live coffee plants out of the port of Mocha, Yemen in 1616. Until then, Yemen had monopolised the supply of coffee but the Dutch appreciated the appeal of the drink and managed to establish coffee plantations in their colonies of Java and Ceylon.

Coffee drinking in Holland is a social affair. People have always congregated in coffee shop to socialise while they enjoy a good cup of coffee. The Bruin cafes are popular, named after the traditional brown decoration that these coffee shop bars are known for. Bruin cafes are still popular today for enjoying ones favourite tipple, be it draft beer of fresh brewed coffee.

Since the 1970s, the Netherlands decided to take a radical approach to the regulation of drugs. The war on drugs was far from successful and the Dutch decided to make a distrinction between hard and soft drugs. This meant a tolerant attitude toward the use of cannabis and many were quick to take advantage of this legal loophole.

Coffee Shop in the Netherlands is now synonymous with shops that sell cannabis (marijuana) to its punters who can smoke this on the premises while they enjoy a coffee or other beverage. In the 1990s coffee shop fever had swept the nation. There were more than 500 coffee shops in Amsterdam alone and the authorities, under pressure from the rest of the world, decided to clamp down on the operation of these coffee shops.

Many Coffee Shops were forced to close for dubious practices and selling hard drugs. The BCD (Bond van Cannabis Detaillisten), a union of the more reputable Coffee Shops, entered negotiations with the authorities. Dutch law now requires coffee to be licensed and operate under strict guidelines. Legitimate Coffee Shops display a small green and white sticker that shows that they are licensed to sell cannabis. These licences are non-transferable so the number of establishments will reduce over time.

The 2008 Anti-Smoking laws passed in Holland had a curious implication for Coffee Shops throughout the Netherlands. The law requires that tobacco products are smoked outside so that employees are not exposed to harmful smoke. In Coffee Shops people are permitted to smoke joints if they do not contain tobacco as the law only deals with tobacco smoke!

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